Typically, nutrition intakes are evaluated using nationally representative dietary surveys, i.e. the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2011-2012) with 9,338 responses (out of >320,532,000 people), and to lesser extent nutritional status is assessed using biochemical measurements, i.e. CDC’s Second Nutrition Report. In almost all cases, the data, e.g. NHANES, is condensed into mean values with confidence intervals. NHANES data is nationally representative (age, sex, ethnics/race) but it is important to remember it is collected from only ~30 counties in the US. According to Wikipedia, there are 3,143 counties and county equivalents in the US. I don’t know which counties but 30 is not many. Should we expect someone living in Massachusetts, Iowa, or Oregon to have the same vitamin D status as someone living in southern California, Texas, or Florida?

With higher resolution vitamin D maps, region-specific activities can be initiated by governments, non-government organizations and businesses to better meet the vitamin D requirements of people within communities. The creation of nutrition status maps would also identify regions where serum 25(OH)D3 data has never been collected.

Thank you Dr Karras and colleagues for a great concept. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and other vitamin status markers, mapped using geospatial coordinates?